Tuesday, June 03, 2008

The Injured man

He sat on the pavement with his shirt half open. His hands had multiple bruises. The cut below his chin had the colour of blood and mud both. His trousers were torn all way below the knee.

He was panting heavily. His eyes, bright and round, kept hovering around - the way a vulture would. He remembered the group of men, devoid of their humanity, attacking him with anything they could. They left him wriggling like a worthless creature on the road. When he regained his consciousness, he took the support of a traffic signal and got up. He limped along the footpath and reached this pavement not too far from his house.

He had no strength left. He remembered the last time he ate was the previous evening - just before leaving his office. So much had happened in ten hours - and all this looked so unbelievable...

He was just hoping all this would end. Just hoping that he would wake up and realize all this was a dream. And knowing that it all had never happened. He just wanted someone to hit the 'Undo' button.

He wished he had never seen the accident. He wished he had never followed the drunk driver who rammed his car into the young boy. He wished he had never decided to make sure the boy got his justice. He wished he had never complained in the police station. Only to be beaten up by the driver's 'influential' friends.

This was the first time that the brains on his shoulders had stopped thinking - and the balls between his legs had prompted him to do something gutsy. But he was already paying for it - walking on a broken leg back home.